Category: Fit family

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We all have that friend that posts on social media every time they go to the bathroom, that is not the post we are talking about here. For the most part; social media posts are fun, our daily highlight, something to be proud of per say.
If you are having a rough day, or maybe just a day of getting all of the chores done so you can enjoy the rest of your week, and Suzy is at the beach with a fruity drink in her hand and ear buds in, you may feel a sense of jealousy. DONT! You may wish to switch places with Suzy today, but you have no idea what may be waiting for her at home or what she had to sacrifice to make one day at the beach happen for her.

If we struggle as adults to remember this, think about how hard it is for our children to see it. “Bobby’s” life is so perfect; he has Nike shoes and gets to stay out after the street lights come on. Maybe bobby has no parent at home to make sure he is home safe and they buy him expensive things out of guilt. Social media is an awesome things, but it is also a lot of smoke mirrors.

Your perception of another’s reality may not be their reality at all! Find freedom in allowing yourself some room for error and imperfection!

When I think about a recent podcast I heard, it makes me think of my twins. The only thing they have in common is their birthday!

Most likely you will either identify with my son or my daughter, struggling to find similarity with the other. Let’s go back to Easter; each kid gets candy in the mail every year from my MIL (👊). My son will put it in his room, taking a piece periodically until I finally throw it away about 6 weeks later. It is not that he doesn’t like it, he just doesn’t always WANT it, or think about it being there. My daughter, in the other hand will eat every last piece before it gets to her room (if I’d let her) and then be puking with a migraine by bedtime.

Addison, my daughter is a person that cannot do moderation, she simply needs to abstain from eating. My son however, can do moderation and that lifestyle works for him.

So why does knowing your habits matter? If you are an Abstainer, you cannot say “I’ll just have one chip,” and put the bag back for next weeks cheat or tomorrow’s lunch. The bag will haunt you all day, calling you from the pantry until you give in and eat it all. If you are a moderator, some diets may not be necessary for you because you can eat one slice of pizza with a large side salad and you’re pizza craving is satisfied.

So what am I? I am an abstainer to the max! My pantry has me on speed dial! Knowing this has given me a lot of ammunition for my meal plan. First of all, I don’t buy it! If it is in my house you can consider it eaten. Second, I have learned to LOVE interval fasting. For 4 hours a day, I do not need to live in moderation. If it is a food choice I allow in my diet, I can eat until full or satisfied within the time allowed. When my window is over, I’m done. Nothing else goes in my mouth. It is black and white, cut and dry!

So are you someone who can do moderation? I don’t consider it as a weakness to need to abstain, I am empowered in knowing that this is what it takes for me to make fit happen for me. If you want more information about interval fasting, I encourage you to google dr. Sara Soloman

I also talked more about my alternative to counting my macros on my periscope account @ mammawithmuscle if you would like to leat how I “keep it simple.”

I would love to hear about YOU! Take a second to fill out the form below and I will post the results of abstainers vs modifiers, super fun!

I don’t usually have such a target audience, however today I am talking to the mama’s out there! When is the last time you went on a date with your son?

As a mom, I feel like I owe it to my future daughter-in-law (I know he is only nine!) to teach my son a few things about being a good husband. Not to mention, I think he is a pretty cool kids that deserves my undivided attention from time to time.

Besides watching the interaction between his parents, a boy can learn a lot about relationships and feelings by having a good relationship with his mom. I am totally ok with my son being a “mamma’s boy” as long as he can still do for himself. There is a difference between dependency and simply a desire to be around someone. I can tell you based on my own relationship with my husband, a relationship between a boy and his mom fundamentally effects how he feels about himself and how he expresses his feelings towards others.

So what can you do TODAY to spend some one-on-one time?

Read a book together at nap time

Go to the grocery store and leave everyone else at home with dad. (some of my favorite alone times with my kids are in the car, they can’t walk away and we are in close enough proximity to hold hands.)

Play a board game in his room after everyone else has gone to bed.

Take a walk/bike ride

Chat while making dinner together

Go out for ice cream

Snuggle on the couch and watch a movie

You don’t have to have a lot of money or even extra time to make the time you spend quality, you simply have to be intentional. Engage in conversation, be focused on him and show him that for that about of time he is your priority.

The bus drove down the street yesterday afternoon and we could hear the kids chanting, “no more days!” as they got closer to the house. They were so excited to sleep in, relax and enjoy no routine.

If I do not plan activities for them, the “no structure” bliss will last about a week. So to prevent “I’m bored!” we are spending our first day of summer vacation making our weekly agenda and tracking charts!

My all time favorite, Our mile tracker. Last summer we did a bike for ice cream chart. This summer, wem are shooting for a 5k. So here is how it works; Have you ever played candy land? Picture the path that curves around the board, a variety of colors. We make the path without giving it any color and for every mile we run we color in a box. When the path is filled in we get our reward, to be decided by the kiddos.

Also on the agenda for our first fit family friday, summer break edition, a trip to the library to sign up for our summer reading program. My older kids, 9, have their own library cards to teach them responsibility along with their reading over the summer. If your town has a summer program, they typically have a reward system in place making it easy for yuo to get them excited about it.

After we get back from the library, we will scower the internet for local vacation bible schools to attend. Morning programs work best for us, however evening events also take place for families that would that time slot.

New this year, we are making an empty scrap book. Labeled blank pages decorated and themed, just waiting for us to add the pictures! It will be like a visual bucket list for the whole family 🙂

So after all of this planning and signing up, behind the scenes, I have planned out our daily routine. Here is a glimpse of what I have planned out:

When I am counting calories, measuring my portion sizes or eliminating certain food I can get pretty crazy. All of that thought about food makes me want to eat food! I think I may have actually found something that works for me, despite my apprehension. Let me just say, I am not a dietician, nutritionist or a physician. I am only telling you what has proven to work for me.

No person is created equal, which means that no nutrition and eating plan will work the same for all. I have tried many eating styles, many of which work to achieve my goal at the time. I ate a paleo diet while pregnant and shortly after, I have done portion control diets that allow all types of foods, I have done a sugar detox.. you name it I have probably done it.

Two things I have learned about myself; strict elimination only makes me binge in the end, and if you give me a little wiggle room with my food I can talk myself into eating anything!

So what am I up to now? I recently listened to a podcast about interval fasting. I have to say I was skeptical, in disbelief that I could actually do it, and anxious to try!

So let me break it down for you. Basically you calculate your macros, or for simplicity sake, the calories you are allowed each day within each food group, and you eat them in a small window within a 24 hour period.

I have never done any of my own research, only studied how it has affected me. First of all, I can tell you the only down fall I have encountered is when there is a social function at a meal time. It is tricky to avoid eating when everyone around you is.

On to the positives! If you have ever dieted you may recall that you are never really full. Let me tell you, eating a days worth of food in 3 hours is sure to make you satisfied. Also, knowing that I am not eating until a certain time is cut and dry. No eating means no eating, not “I’ll have just one that leads to a whole bag.” It is amazing how much you eat without even realizing it. A bite here and a kids leftover there.

Moving past what I am not doing, lets talk about all the water I drink. I easily drink 7 shaker bottles of water each day. Most of the time when you think you are hungry you are actually thirsty anyway! I have also been a little more lenient with what I eat, allowing what I may have previously eliminated with other eating lifestyles. When I only have 3 hours to eat I can’t do that much damage right?!?

I know what you are thinking, how do you only eat 3 out of 24 hours? Let me just say I started with a 16 hour fast, eating 8 hours. I only did this a few days a week to adjust my mindset. I slowing added fasting hours and the number of days I would commit to doing it. I am currently up to 6 days a week of eating 3-4 hours, typically 4-8. The toughest part is stopping again once I start.

So what is my motivation? I can honestly say I have a flatter stomach now than I have in a long time. I have not changed my calorie intake, only my eating time. On the 7th day I still eat clean and stay within my macros, but I will occasionally indulge. With that being said, My recovery from a cheat day is a lot faster and easier with this eating style as well. Also, I am a lot more productive during my fasting time because I am not distracted by food and meal breaks.

If you want all of the ins and outs of how and why this works, check out The Chalene Show’s podcast with Dr. Sara Soloman. She has done the research and explains perfectly the concept.

Like I said, this is not an eating style that would work for everyone. I am a personal trainer, however I have no official education in nutrition. Feel free to ask questions in the comments below! I would love to hear if you try it out as well.

I have had a lot of people ask me lately about eating cleaner and making it work for a busy lifestyle. Left face it, we are all busy!

My husband and I were recently discussing taking on a new business venture and he quickly said, “now you know this may mean more convenient meals.” REALLY?? If you know me, I took that as a challenge. So what does making dinner look like for our house? Let me break it down for you.

Let me just start by saying, I have done food/meal prep a lot of different ways, and they all work depending on what else is going on.

I call this the lazy man’s meal prep ( my current form ) It is usually the protein of the meal that I find myself struggling with when not prepared. It either needs to be thawed or we just plain don’t have it. My solution; when I go to the grocery store and buy my meat, I cook it before I put it away. For our house, meat is usually chicken, ground turkey and pork chops. I season my meats with the same typical spices, or none at all. This allows for future modifications. For instance, plain chicken breasts can be shredded and tossed with salsa for taco night. Ground turkey can be put in eggs, thrown on a salad or put in a lettuce wrap. I am not even going to lie, on my high protein days I have been known to walk around the house with a pork chop in my hand!

Have you even been here before? Standing in the refrigerator starving, knowing you should have a salad and having no yummy toppings at your fingertips. You have the veggies, but all. that. work. to cut them up….. Here is an idea. Cut them up when you get home from the store, before you put them away! Tupperware with diced peppers, tomatoes, onions and cucumbers will last in the refrigerator for the whole week. Besides the salads, you can put them in your scrambled eggs in the morning. You never know, maybe your kiddos will reach for a cut up cucumber instead of chips for a crunchy snack.

So as you may notice, I have not actually made any full meals, but I have laid a good foundation for them. So another way of prepping that produces results is what I call the tomorrow today idea. When I am making dinner, I am making extras for tomorrow. If I am cooking already, why not make extra? So, say I am cooking 3 pounds of chicken breasts. If I have seasoned breasts tonight, maybe we have tomorrows with bar b que sauce..same yet different. Just last week I made a whole box of quieno. The first night I added salsa for a southwest theme, the next night I added garlic and shreaded cheese. Another example, our cookout this weekend. The grill was fired up so why not cook all of our veggies? Grilled squash, Brussel sprouts and asparagus. One for each of the next three nights. Your hubby just helped you meal prep without even knowing it!

Do you love your crock pot? I do, but I don’t always have time in the morning to get it all together. Most dinners made in my crock pot are actually not for today,but for tomorrow. I can still set it and forget it, but I can do it in the afternoon and let it cook until bedtime if it is easier for my schedule. I also use my crock as a defroster instead of a cooker. My husband is a great sport, but he does not love chicken breasts cooked in the crock pot. We typically buy them frozen to cut costs, so It is not a quick turn around from freezer to plate. If I put them in the crock early to start cooking/defrosting, I can throw them in the oven to finish up to prevent drying out.

If you are a 9-5’er you may benefit from a day of prepping individual meals in quick to grab Tupperware. This takes a little more prep on one day, but saves time, money and stress later. All of the previous ideas apply, but the final step is to break the food groups down into individual meals (1 meat, 1 veggie and 1 carb). One of my favorite meal prep ideas is the salad in a mason jar. It must have something to do with the glass, but these suckers will stay good all week! So, cut up your veggies and layer them in the bottom of a mason jar from the heartiest on the bottom up to the lettuce. You can even add your dressing in the very bottom, the only thing soaking in it is your harder veggies like carrots, so they hold up well. After you have filled in your veggies fill it to the top with your lettuce and seal it up. I have even done avocado which made me nervous but it held up well too. I also know people who have added their shredded chicken to complete the meal.

I hope that my crazy meal prep plans can work for you too! I would love to hear feedback on what has worked for you or any new ideas!